Improvisation
by Bonsoir
Summary: FE7. Modern-day college AU, featuring Sain/Fiora, Hector/Farina, Kent/Lyndis, and a number of friendships. The mysterious poetry class Fiora signed up for is taught by GTA Sain Harrison, Kent and Lyndis carpool to the campus, Farina is awakened at 6:00am by Dart's crappy too-loud music, and Hector arrives late to his first class, taking the first open seat he sees.


**Title:** Improvisation  
**Chapter Title:** Sway  
**Characters:** Relationships: Hector/Farina, Kent/Lyndis, Sain/Fiora. Friendships: Kent+Sain, Lyndis+Florina, Lyndis+Hausen, Fiora+Farina, Hector+Eliwood, Hector+Lyndis, and others.  
**Genre:** Romance, Friendship  
**Words:** 3,811  
**Notes:** This is a **RE-WRITE** of _Looking for a Little Canon in D_. It was last updated on my birthday, so I thought I'd start the re-write…on my birthday. Since it's my birthday, you should review, too! Uhh…I mean…The title comes from Robin Spielberg's _An Improvisation on Canon in D (_the most beautiful rendition of the classical piece by Johann Pachelbel). The definition of improvisation is: the act of improvising; something improvised. (Life is improvised, really, when you think about it.) There is a small chance that the rating will go up to M in future chapters. Feedback is awesome and appreciated!  
**Setting:** Modern-day college AU. Even though it takes place on Elibe (so that I can use in-game cities/et cetera) everything else about it remains modern, including the car companies.

* * *

_I've always been a dreamer;  
I've had my head among the clouds.  
Well, now that I'm comin' down,  
Won't you be my solid ground?  
_Sway—The Perishers

* * *

Fiora enjoyed school. On her very first day of elementary school, she'd walked in to see sparkling clean rooms with freshly waxed floors and the scrubbed faces of other children sitting in neat rows, and she'd known immediately that she'd love it there. She'd been right; it was a nice escape from her home life and it gave her the opportunity to really shine.

Many years later, she still felt that same stupid little thrill to walk into school on the first day of the fall semester. The floors weren't freshly waxed, and the classrooms had been used all summer, but it still felt like a fresh start to her.

Her first class was on the second floor of Caelin Hall in Room 237, at the end of the left-side corridor. If, for some reason, she'd forgotten the name of the course she'd signed up for, it was written on the board. She supposed it was a nice gesture to help students feel more secure—she hadn't forgotten Priscilla telling her the embarrassing story of sitting through an entire physics lecture on accident when she thought she was in the right room for a class on geology—but it was overkill the way it had been done.

As she set her bag on the top of the long square table at the front, she squinted a little at the words—they were practically written in calligraphy, large black scripted letters spelling out _Poetry in Motion_.

She sat down, pulled out her notebook and a pencil, and took her glasses out to rest them on the table in front of her. She was the first in the room—ten minutes early was on-time, she thought.

Geitz stumbled in after a few minutes, looking groggy. He gave her a disgusted look but sat down next to her anyway.

"Why the hell do you always sit up front."

It wasn't a question, really, but she answered it nonetheless. "I want good grades."

"You can get good grades from the _back_ row, too," he grumbled, but didn't move.

She'd met him the previous year. While she was picking up a minor in English, he was majoring in it—something about wanting to do journalism—and while she didn't consider him a good friend or anything, he was more intelligent than he let on; she knew he sat next to her because half of the other people in the room would make terrible partners and give even worse critique on peer-reviewed work.

"Did they ever bother to announce the professor for this class?" he asked after a moment, pulling an entire thermos out of his bag and setting it on the table with a loud _thunk_. "I haven't checked since July."

"Of course they haven't," she sighed.

Fiora was not a fan of surprises—too often they were negative. Normally she would have hesitated to take a class where the professor remained "to be announced" for any length of time, but poetry sounded like an easy elective and Geitz had suggested they take it together, "to avoid having to take it with idiots."

The coffee cup on the podium in the corner told her that the professor had already arrived and left again—probably to run copies or an errand or something—and she waited patiently as Geitz grouched about the time—"Too early in the damn morning for this!"—and the subject matter—"Yuck! Poetry!"

Other people began to trickle in until there was a comfortable eighteen students in the room, all of them nervous because nobody knew who was teaching the class, or really what the class was _about_.

Poetry in motion—what did that even _mean_? Did you write everything as an action? Did you write _about_ actions? Was it an oral poetry class?

At eight o'clock exactly, as the clock tower in the center of the campus began to chime, a young man practically waltzed into the room strumming on an acoustic guitar.

The sudden music made half the class jump, including Geitz, whose face was plastered unattractively against the table.

When he stopped at the front of the room and jumped up into the tall spinning chair that sat there, Fiora realized that _this_ was their professor.

Which was hard to believe.

He couldn't be older than twenty-five, she thought, and even though he was well-dressed, there was something about him that just seemed…well…boyish.

"Good morning!" he practically sang to them, even though he'd set his guitar down. There were a couple of mumbled greetings in return, but for the most part, the class just stared, including Fiora. She put on her glasses. He still looked awfully boyish.

"Well, I can see you're all eager and excited to begin _this_ class," he continued, seemingly undeterred. "My name is Sain Harrison. I'm a graduate teacher assistant, and I'll be teaching _Poetry in Motion_."

Well, Fiora thought—that explained that.

"Great," Geitz grumbled under his breath.

"Now," said Sain, reaching under his chair for a folder that he must have placed there earlier, "my favorite part: attendance."

"Who the hell says _that_," Geitz wondered half-aloud.

Fiora wasn't sure. But she found out—and quickly, because Sain pointed to her first. "Starting with the front row."

He gave her a disarming smile, which she found to be rather disconcerting, and said, half a question, "Fiora Clark?"

"Fiora!" he said, very happily. She was relieved that he didn't sing it. But as he checked off her name on his list, he added, "Did you know that your name was possibly first coined by A. E. Maxwell for his mystery novel series, a variation of the name Fiona?"

She considering saying yes but she had no idea what he was talking about and so she answered him, confused, "No."

He smiled at her again. "I like Fiora better." Then he nodded at Geitz.

Geitz just smirked at her a little, very smugly, and gave his name while Sain hummed happily and moved onto the next person.

"This might be more fun than I thought," Geitz told her, looking way too amused.

Fiora only groaned and pulled her glasses off to rub the bridge of her nose.

* * *

"Good morning military man."

"I'm not a military man." He hadn't been, not for three years.

Lyndis just gave him an unconcerned smile. "You still drill like one."

"Not really." He didn't run anymore.

She sighed. "Okay, I'll just call you my knight in a shiny Tacoma, because you're saving me the very long, very painful walk to the bus station with all this stuff."

He allowed himself to smile. "That works."

She moved to the back of the truck and lifted the cover over the bed while he opened his door and slid out.

"See?" he heard her call as he picked up her bucket of gesso and her huge art supply toolbox. "You even put a tarp down so my stuff wouldn't get dirty."

He didn't comment on it because it wasn't a big deal. "Was there anything else?" he asked when they'd loaded everything up and latched the back cover down.

She looked thoughtful for a long moment. "Oh!" she said, quickly. "My music—and my _coffee_, gosh, my coffee!" She ran back up the cracked stone steps and through the squeaky storm door and appeared again a few moments later with her house key in her mouth and everything else in her hands. "Here," she told him, handing him her tiny iPod and her sugary coffee.

While he got in the truck she ran back up to the house and locked the front door.

"I wouldn't bother," she said, climbing up into the passenger seat and closing the door behind her as she pulled her seatbelt on in one long, smooth motion, "but Granddad really has been getting forgetful the last few months."

"He didn't wander down into the neighbors' garage again, did he?"

"No," she sighed, and leaned back as he started the engine, "he made it all the way down to that supermarket and I found him trying to play hopscotch with some of the neighborhood kids."

Kent knew what that meant. Pretty soon Lyndis would be unable to care for him on her own, and he'd have to go into a nursing home of some kind. He didn't dare suggest it, though—not on the first day of a new semester.

As if to distract herself from thinking of it, she hooked up her iPod to the cable sticking out of his CD deck and hummed along to the music in her slightly off-key voice.

Before he'd met Lyndis, he'd never listened to music in the car at all, but they had a thirty minute drive to class, and he had to admit that it did make the drive seem shorter sometimes; it was nice not to have to fill the silence with idle chatter.

"Hey Kent?" she asked after a while, shuffling the music from one song to the next as if she were looking for something to suit her particular mood.

"Hm?"

"Thanks." She reached over and touched his arm, giving it a squeeze.

He knew she didn't mean just for the ride. Taking his left hand off the wheel for just a moment while he was at a red light, he covered her hand with his—a silent, "You're welcome."

She smiled and took her hand back, finally settling on something quiet but upbeat. "When's your last class today?"

"I finish around eight."

She made a face. "Where should I meet you?"

"First floor of the Bern Engineering Building."

"I still don't understand why they have psychology classes in that building."

He smiled. "Nobody understands that."

She smiled back at him. "On Wednesday you don't have to wait for me if you don't want to."

"I'll wait."

"It's four hours, Kent."

He gave a very slight shrug of his shoulders. "You know Ilia Hall has plenty of computer labs. I'll be able to work in peace and quiet."

"If you say so. My last class is in there anyway."

"You might want to bring a sweater on Wednesday, then."

"Why?"

"You'll see."

The rest of the drive was quiet conversation-wise, with Lyn half-singing to her music and watching the side of the road as he drove, and with him remembering every single thing he'd forgotten at home, one right after the next.

It was nothing he'd _need_—not on the first day—but he made a mental note to get it ready as soon as he got home that night, so that he wouldn't forget it on Wednesday.

As he pulled up to the Eturian Arts Center to drop Lyndis off, he considered, for probably the millionth time in the last couple of years, asking Lyndis out on an actual _date_. Sain was kind of right—he was too old to be shy about asking a woman out.

But Sain was an idiot and wasn't dating anyone _himself_ so what did he know?

Still, things with Lyndis were complicated—she had her grandfather to worry about—and he had his own troubles, like his mother and his leg. Even though she seemed to really like him, he didn't want to be wrong about how _much_ she liked him, and more importantly, he didn't want to make things awkward between them.

But God, he loved her.

When he made sure she was safely in the building with all of her art supplies—most of which, he hoped, she'd be able to store in one of the art studios—he circled around the campus to where his last class would end, and took one of the front handicapped spots available.

After grabbing his notebook and pencil from the tiny backseat, he locked his truck and limped to his first class. With the campus so quiet and his odd gait one of the only sounds he could even hear, he was reminded again of how Lyndis had greeted him that morning and he sighed.

Military man, indeed.

* * *

As a teenager, Farina had slept very heavily. Now, as a twenty-two-year-old adult, even the sound of someone clipping their toenails in the bathroom would wake her up.

Blearily, she squinted at the clock on her nightstand. Six o'clock in the fucking morning. She scowled, sat up, yanked open her bedroom door, marched across the living room to where Dart's door was wide open and blaring out the worst music she'd ever heard, and slammed his door shut, shouting, "Fuck you! I went to bed at _three o'clock_!"

The only reason that Dart had become her roommate in the first place had been desperation; she'd needed help with the rent so badly that she'd taken the first person who could pay her for _their_ first month up front. The only reason that Dart was _still_ her roommate was because he actually paid his rent on time every month, _and_ he kept to himself.

Except for his shitty loud-ass music. Surround sound! In a shabby _apartment_ like theirs! What a _colossal_ waste of money!

Now that she was angry and awake, she didn't think she could manage to go back to sleep. Her first class wasn't until ten o'clock but she was afraid going back to sleep would mean she'd sleep through it. Instead, she ran a hand through her messy hair and straightened her oversized t-shirt and shorts, and ambled into the kitchen to make herself some breakfast.

Something real. Something not-rushed.

Poached eggs. Toast. Bacon. She knew if Dart showed up she'd have to share—because it was his bacon—but she didn't even care. And so, when he did mosey into the kitchen, shaving cream still smeared across his face and dressed in ripped jeans and a collared, greasy-looking work shirt, she was already prepared and shoved a plate at him.

"Awesome, thanks!" he said, and wiped at the shaving cream smears she pointed out with a roll of her eyes.

"Look," she said grumpily. "Try coffee next time. Not your loud shitty music. Okay? I gotta sleep sometime, or I'll fall over dead halfway through the year."

"Farina," he said, face full of food already, "you know I need my music."

"Not at that volume you don't," she said.

"Fine, it'll be quieter tomorrow."

"Good," she told him. "That's my only day to sleep in the entire week."

Even if Dart did cause her undue stress, at least he always paid the rent on time, and despite the fact that far too often he came home half-drunk with girls she'd never met before, he never really missed work, either. He loved his job. And his boss was practically his father if the way he talked about him was any indication.

Even if she lost sleep, it was worth it just to have someone pretty dependable around who didn't constantly hit on her and snoop through her things.

Dart was an all right guy.

After he took off for the marina, she put all of her school things into her bag and set it by the door, and then set five alarms for nine o'clock in the hopes that she could get at least an hour of quiet, uninterrupted sleep.

She managed it, but felt even worse when she woke up, and trudged to class early in the hopes of getting good parking spot.

With a front-row parking spot her mood lifted a little bit. While some people were lucky enough to schedule classes only a few days of the week, she was stuck with classes on all five days, and when she wasn't in class, she was working.

Florina had e-mailed her to ask when she planned to eat and sleep, and Farina's response had been fairly normal on that front: she'd manage. Somehow. She'd always been the "fly by the seat of her pants" kind of person. It hadn't always ended well, but she was still around, so in the end it had all worked out.

She hated school, and she wanted to finish it as soon as possible. The sooner the better. Even though Fiora was there to _learn_, Farina was one of the many who wanted to get a degree and get out. She'd never been very good at learning.

And Fiora liked to remind her of it as regularly as possible. "You were so terrible at learning but so good at making stuff up that nobody noticed _you couldn't write_ until you were in fourth grade!"

Farina scowled just remembering it. She hated that story and she hated even more that Fiora actually told it to people. If Elibe University hadn't been the cheapest four-year school around, and if Farina hadn't been qualified for a nice little grant for being so damn poor, she wouldn't have chosen to go to the same college as her sister.

She still hadn't been able to forgive Fiora for the biggest transgression ever committed against her, and she doubted she'd ever manage to. Maybe it was what _had_ to be done, but Farina still resented it having happened at all.

Sometimes when she saw her sister on campus, she'd say hello, exchange a very polite, very cordial greeting and then make a hasty exit with the excuse of having to get to class or work. It was for the best. Farina didn't want to fight with her sister in public over something that had happened ten years ago.

With a tired sigh, she dropped into a back-row seat in her first class and sat through the usual boring first-day lecture. First days were usually a waste of her time, but occasionally useful information would crop up—like how many days they were permitted to miss before it affected their grade.

As terrible as it was, Farina sometimes used those "permitted" days to pick up extra shifts or even full days at work; she needed the money. Badly.

By the time the class started, the room was completely packed, and she had to move her bag from the desk next to hers just to make room for some giant jock-looking guy who showed up five minutes late.

Her second class was nothing special, just as predicted, and she ended up in her third way too early and sat in the back.

But the professor arrived early, too, smiled at her too kindly, and asked her to move, "a little closer to the front, please," and she couldn't tell him no, because he then mentioned that the class only had a handful of students in it, and he wanted them all to sit closer so that he wouldn't have to shout.

She moved up to the third row and sat on the end, and put her head down on the table. Just to rest her eyes.

It wasn't until she felt her chair being moved and felt her stomach squishing up against the side of the table that she even realized she'd fallen asleep, and she jolted awake to hear a hurried, apologetic, "Sorry," as someone dropped down into the chair next to her.

When she turned to look at the room a little bit, she noticed that there were at least ten other open seats that _weren't_ right next to someone—and by someone, she meant, of course, herself—but before she could give the person next to her a piece of her mind, she realized he looked familiar.

"Oh, hey," he said, and gave her a smile. "Geology, too, right?"

Who the fuck remembered something stupid like that—like who sat next to them in another class? Apparently this guy.

And herself, she thought with a sigh, since he was definitely the dumb jock-looking guy who had come into the first class five minutes late.

She had an aversion to people sitting next to her when there were other seats open, though. It happened pretty much every semester. What, did they think sitting next to her would get them somewhere with her? Hah!

"Hector," he said, pushing his thumb back into his chest as if what he was saying could mean _anything_ else.

She answered warily, positive that he had stupid-man motivations for sitting next to her: "Farina."

It didn't matter why he was sitting next to her. Just like everyone else, her complete lack of tact and manners would force him to move sooner or later.

He didn't say anything else, as the professor had moved to the front of the room. He introduced himself as Pent Reglay and had immediately tossed the syllabus at them all as he tried to entice them into loving this "very fascinating" course. Farina wasn't sure that ancient Greece and Rome were _that_ exciting, but Professor Reglay seemed so eager to cover all of the material that by the end of the class, she thought that she was glad she'd picked it for her history elective.

It was nice to hear the _professor_ sounding excited; that was more than she was used to seeing in a gen-ed course.

As she put her notebook back into her bag, Hector stood with his and looked down at her, giving her a slight smile. Damn, he was tall.

"So when did you take the lab to go along with that geology class?"

Why was he even talking to her? Usually people didn't bother her much, not until she spoke up for class discussions, and the only reason she ever did was because she was so opinionated.

"Tuesday," she answered.

"Oh? What time?"

"What does it matter?" Maybe she was too grumpy from not getting enough sleep; she almost immediately felt bad for snapping at him, but only because he seemed so genuinely dopey.

"Hey," he said, getting defensive right away, "I'm not trying to be a creep; I just wondered if maybe we had the lab together, too!"

She closed her eyes for a moment and let out a breath; her temper was always frayed after a morning waking up to Dart's idea of music. "One o'clock," she answered, more quietly.

He looked pleased with her answer and moved past her. "We should be partners then."

He left before she could even respond. You didn't just _become partners_ with someone because you had seen them in another class!

Luckily, history was her last class of the day, and she hurried her things to her car and then headed to work, hoping that her other two classes—a psychology class and a writing class on Thursday and Friday night, respectively—would be Hector-free.

She'd have to wait to find out about that, though.

As for the lab, well, she was certain he'd be five minutes late for that, too, and she would be early, and then he'd be forced to be lab partners with someone else who arrived at the last second—also known as: anyone but her.


End file.
